The Big It
by md1016
Summary: Mulder's therapy session.


The Big It   
by MD1016 

"I think she's on to us." Mulder peered out the window anxiously, and then twisted the rod to close the blinds. He was acting more paranoid than usual, and for Fox Mulder, that was really saying something.

"I'm assuming you're talking about your partner."

Mulder nodded as he fiddled with the Fichus by the window.

"Stop that." He'd practically pruned the plant down to its stalk a month before. Good indoor plants were expensive.

Mulder stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. "I don't want to talk about Scully. Change the subject."

"No. Let's stick with this for a while. Why do you feel guilty, Fox? Do you think she should know about these sessions? Maybe she'd like to come, too."

"No!" He startled himself with his adamant response. Mulder backed off a little and shook his head. "I don't want her to know anything about this."

"But why? You're not doing anything wrong by coming to see me, you know. I'm here to help you release some tension. Help you sleep better at night."

Mulder shrugged, unconvinced.

"Why don't you just tell her? Then you wouldn't have to sneak around, and you wouldn't feel guilty."

"I don't feel guilty," he insisted.

"Do you think she wouldn't understand, Fox?"

"I told you: not Fox."

"Your name is Fox, and that's what I'll call you. Consider it part of your therapy. Now, sit down and talk to me."

Begrudgingly, Mulder did as he was told. He took a seat on the floral print couch.

"No more talk about Scully. I don't want to talk about her."

"Fine. You pick the topic then."

Mulder stared down at his knees and sighed. "I hate this shit. This is why I don't practice." The clock on the wall ticked off the seconds. "She's the reason I first started coming, you know."

"I didn't know that."

He nodded as if it were the most interesting piece of news he'd heard all week. "We'd had a big case -- horrible, even by our standards. We were out on the field for two or three weeks, and I kept waking up in cold sweats. The stuff I was dreaming about was even worse than the stuff we were investigating. Scully wanted me to talk to her about it, but I couldn't."

"Really? I thought you said you could trust her with anything, above anyone else."

"It's not a question of trust with Scully."

"Then what is it?"

Mulder took in a deep breath and thought about it for a moment. "I rely on Scully for...a lot. Too much, I think. And she has her own demons to deal with, she doesn't need mine dumped in her lap."

"I think you're afraid of appearing weak to her."

Mulder started at the bluntness of the statement. "I'm not afraid."

"She thinks highly of you?"

"I think she does," he said cautiously.

"Would she think less of you if she knew you were seeing me?"

Mulder shook his head confidently. "That's not it. We have this... There are a lot of things she doesn't know about me, things I keep private. And she does the same."

"Is it a fear of intimacy?"

Mulder considered this. "I don't think so."

"How would you define your relationship with your partner?"

"Close."

"Friends?"

"Certainly."

"But not confidants."

Mulder's brows lowered. "What are you writing?"

"I'm just taking notes, Fox. You know how this works."

Mulder crossed his arms tightly over his chest. "I hate this."

"You keep coming back. Now stop changing the subject, Fox. I asked if you consider your partner to be a confidant."

He turned and played a finger over the white orchid on the cushion next to him. "Sure. About most stuff."

"Like what?"

"I don't know." He balled his fist and bounced it against the couch. "About my sister, I guess. I told Scully all about Samantha. She knows how I feel about my mother, my father... Not many people even know I have a family, I think."

"You don't talk about them much?"

"They're not really in my life. Well...mom's not, anyway."

"You father died a couple of years ago."

"Checking your notes?"

"That's why I have them."

Mulder sighed and threw his head back and opened his jaw a couple of times. "And I know things about Scully that no one else knows, too."

"Like what?"

"It doesn't matter. Things that she doesn't want other people to know."

"But she told you?"

"Yeah."

"Does she ever talk about her hopes? Dreams?"

"Yeah."

"To other people, or just to you?"

"Why does that matter?"

"It doesn't, really. I'm trying to figure out why you two are so close, but you still feel the need to hide these sessions from her."

"I'm not hiding."

"I think you are. I think telling her about what we're doing here would betray a level of distance that you've laid out. I call it a Buffer Zone. You and she keep each other on opposite sides of the Buffer Zone because it's safer than laying everything out in the open."

"So, we're just partners."

"I thought you were friends."

"We are."

"Are you lovers, Fox?"

"What? No."

"Do you want to be?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "You don't understand our relationship."

"Does she want you to be lovers?"

Mulder stopped fidgeting. His eyes dropped to the carpet. "I think... I think it would be easy for us to become lovers. It wouldn't be a good idea, though."

"Because it would complicate things?"

"Because it would change things. Put the pen down." He watched and waited and when he was ready to begin again he took a deep breath. "Scully is the only person on this planet that I'm supposed to be with. Having said that, I will qualify it by saying that I always thought I was meant to be alone."

"Do you think she feels the same way?"

"I think Scully has always assumed she'd one day get married and have children. I don't think she ever counted on falling in love; though, I'm pretty sure she wanted that, too."

"Do you think she's in love with you?"

"I think...she thinks she is."

"But you've never really discussed it." Mulder shook his head. "Why?"

"Neither of us -- we don't really talk about our feelings."

"But you said you think she's in love with you. She must've said something to--"

"I said she probably thinks she's in love with me. And no, she's never come out and told me; that's not her style."

"Are you in love with her?"

Mulder was still for a long moment. "Are you going to write that down?"

"I might. Are you in love with her?"

He looked up at the ceiling and then winced. "I might be."

"Why do you say it like that?"

"Because now you're going to say that I should tell her."

"I don't think I was going to suggest that."

"People are always saying you should tell the person you're in love with that you're in love with them. But it's different with Scully and me."

"How so?"

"Because I can't follow through."

"Is this an impotency problem?"

"No! Hell no!" Mulder shifted, offended. "The problem is, if I tell her, then we would kiss."

"That would be bad?"

"No, it would be great. But then we'd sleep together."

"Which would be bad."

"No, that would probably be great, too. Really great. Amazing."

"So, where's the problem?"

"Because that can only go on so long before she'd want to get married, have children, raise a family."

"I thought you said she couldn't have children."

"Adopt. Whatever. The point is, that everything would change. I would become something that I'm not, something that I never wanted to be."

"And she would become exactly what she's always assumed she would be. Does she feel like she's missing out?"

"Why do women suddenly turn into ticking biological time bombs when they hit thirty? And why isn't Scully immune to it?"

"You're sure that your partner would want to get married and have kids?"

"Yeah. She complains about not having a life, about how people out there are settling down and we're...not."

"We? She says that?"

"Yeah."

"I see. Do you ever want to get married and have kids?"

"Maybe. Someday. I don't know. Maybe not." He yanked the cross stitch kitty throw pillow up in frustration and played with the red fringe.

"But you know she really does want these things."

He nodded.

"Are you afraid she may reach a point where she won't wait anymore?"

"What do you mean? Find someone else to marry?"

"Someone else? That's very possessive for a man not wanting commitment."

"She has my commitment. Completely," he shot back. "Never doubt that."

"This is a sore subject for you."

He clenched his jaw. "No, it's not."

"Fine. Then we'll continue. Has she threatened to leave before?"

"We're not together. I told you that," he said irritated.

"I'm talking about your work. And the two of you are very much together, so don't play that game with me, Fox."

"Don't call me that!"

"What did you do when she threatened to leave?"

"I --" He stopped mid-sentence with a look of stunned realization. Mulder sat up a little straighter and pushed the throw pillow aside. "I tried to kiss her."

"You tried?"

"Yeah." He waved a dismissive hand. "A bee stung her, she passed out, the EMS kidnapped her -- it was a big production."

"Have you tried since then?"

"No." He zoned out for a moment, lost in whatever memory was connected with that kiss.

"Let me get this straight. She threatened to leave, and you -- desperate to keep her with you -- tried to manipulate her into staying by giving her what you think she wants from you."

Mulder blinked. Twice. "Well, it was more complicated than that."

"What would you've done if your plan had worked? If that bee hadn't stung her, and you'd really kissed her, and she decided to stay with you based on that kiss."

Mulder shrugged, sulkily. "It doesn't matter. She decided to stay without it."

"So, basically you're holding her hostage. You know what she wants, but you don't want to give it to her, and you don't want her to leave you to try and find it with someone else."

Mulder shoved the heel of his hand into his eyes and rubbed vigorously. "It's not as simple as you're making it sound. And Scully can take care of herself. If she didn't want to be with me, I don't think she would be. You make it sound like she's some love-sick school girl. Scully and I are partners. We work together."

"She's the only person on the planet you want to be with."

"Put the pen down!"

"Look, Fox. Whatever's between your partner and you -- that's your business. Both of your business. Know that the best partnerships, the best relationships, are a give and take. One person can't make all the rules and expect the other to follow blindly forever."

"You think she's going to leave me?"

"I don't know her. All I know is what you've told me, which is that you don't want her to know you're coming here because you don't want her in your Buffer Zone, but you don't want anyone else getting into her Zone, either."

"She wasn't going to leave because of the Buffer Zone. They'd closed down our division; they were splitting us up."

"Oh? What does that mean?"

"It means she didn't want to be shipped out to Idaho to work in some field office."

"If she had quit, what would she have done?"

"Scully? You mean for work? Something medical, I imagine. She really is a great forensic pathologist. Maybe work in a hospital, local law enforcement."

"Here in DC?"

"Well...yeah."

"Oh. I see."

"You see what, exactly?"

"So, she wasn't really threatening to leave you. She was quitting to stay with you, here in DC."

Mulder's brows furrowed. "But...but I might've been transferred someplace else, too."

"Did she urge you to quit? To stay in DC with her?"

"Uh..." Mulder ran a frustrated hand over his face. "Yeah. She did. But I thought she just thought I should give up."

"Maybe she did. Maybe for her, giving up means getting everything she wants."

Mulder shook his head and pushed himself up to his feet. Hands on hips, he paced the width of the room. "I don't think so. Scully doesn't play mind games."

"Let me put it this way: If you two didn't work together anymore, if you had to leave your job and start something new, would you still want her in your life?"

"Of course."

"As a friend you see one a week? Once every other week? Once a month?"

He opened his mouth to say something, but then shut it again, crossed his arms, and sighed. "I think...if I didn't have the X-Files...and they kicked me out of the FBI..." Mulder shook his head again, and turned to the closed window. "I don't know. Part of me would like to think that I would say fuck it and ask her to marry me, and we'd leave this stinking city and move someplace where we could have a yard and a dog, where she could have a private practice, maybe, and I would...do something."

He turned back around and tucked his fists in his armpits. "Another part of me says that I could never give up what I do, and that if they kicked me out of the FBI, I would die trying to worm my way back in."

"You love your job that much?"

"No. But I need it that much. I hate the FBI, hate law enforcement, hate the backstabbing bureaucracy, hate the lousy pay and constant threat, the getting called out of bed at 3a.m. to see a person who was slaughtered like a cow, and then know that it's my responsibility to get that person off the streets and bring them to justice. I fucking hate justice, because it's anything but!

"But I think I would be lost without it. The same way I'd be lost without seeing Scully every day."

"So, you want both."

"No. I have both."

The End.

Special thanks to Lorie. You're such a peach.


End file.
